Several years back I stumbled upon something amazing, a form of meditation that combines the relaxing focus of meditation while enter-twining dream analysis/ vivid visualization. I say stumbled upon because it was literally something that just happened due to the circumstances of my life. In writing this down I hope that it can benefit others as it has benefited me and help me make it through some tough times in my life.
To better understand the concept of Spirit House one must understand some of the circumstances of my life at the time it showed itself to me. At the time I was doing my first and second year of college studying psychology and I had just gotten a very stressful job (working with anti-social teens). My wife and I were expecting and finances were low, in so much that we were using my student loans to pay to bills. To not go into too great detail I will just say it was one of the most stressful times of my life.
It was during this time that I was practicing some focus meditation which I had just learned and I had found that it was most helpful before bed. I was also spending most of my mental journey writing a fantasy novel I had been dreaming up for years. Because of my work an the many stresses I had, I had high anxiety levels and had troubles falling to sleep at night. To help with that I would do some focus meditation and then after I had felt in more of a state of calm I began dreaming up the fantasy world of my book. This did a little to help me with my stress it was when I got to specific part of my book that it happened.
In my book I had a character which I mirrored after myself and I had gotten to a point in the book that he had come across a derelict house in the woods that he was going to claim as his own. I would imagine myself as this alter ego of myself and set about the process of acquiring said house and making it my own. It was in doing this starting with the focus meditation I found a great state of relaxation. Every night when I got home I would do the same thing and though I had figured out that portion of the story I felt myself drawn back to this cabin in the woods. In so doing I found I slept better and my stress levels began subsiding more as well.
I never understood what was so appealing about me going back to this house every night and why i felt so drawn to it, I just knew it worked it helped me sleep at night and helped with my stress. It wasn't until I started taking a class about dream theory that I realized the full significance of what was happening. If one knows how dreams work, they are basically one being able to see to processes of the mind de-fragmenting itself and storing its thought and memories in their proper place and it does so through symbolism a symbol, within a symbol, within a symbol. I came to the realization that the house in my dreamlike meditation and visualization was in fact me, and my mind was commenting on my own life through the different chores and things I experienced while I was visiting there before sleep.
This may seem silly, or like I am up in the night, however through analyzing the different scenes and things that happened in this dream world I have found that my life itself and followed the lines which were revealed to me in this meditative state. Something I had first used as a form of coping and stress relief in my life had in fact turned into something more deep and meaningful than I had thought it would and I attribute much of my current mental health to that process and what it did for me. Through building my spirit house my life and my emotions seam to all come into balance.
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